Pasta

Pasta

Research
Pasta is one of the world's most accessible foods and a great source of carbohydrates. The word "pasta" translates to "paste" in Italian. This is a reference to the dough made from a combination of flour and water or eggs.  Most people think of pasta as Italian food and although it is traditionally Italian, the history of pasta is pretty complicated.

Pasta is most likely to be the descendant of noodles from Asia. A common belief is that Marco Polo brought pasta from China to Italy during the 13th century. In his book, "The Travels of Marco Polo", there is a passage that mentions a plant that produced flour. The Chinese used this plant to create barley flour which Marco Polo then mentioned that it was used to make dishes similar to pasta, including one called "lagana" which we believe is the modern day lasagna.

Marco Polo

There are tons of varieties pasta, some of the common types of pasta include:
- Angel hair (fine and delicate strands)
- Spaghetti
- Macaroni
- Farfalle (looks like a bow tie)
- Fettuccine
- Fusilli (pasta with twists and spirals)
- Linguine
- Penne
- Rigatoni (tube-like)
- Shells
- Lasagne
- Ravioli
etc.

The Encyclopedia of Pasta

Pasta without sauce is unspeakable, some simple pasta sauces include:
 - Bolognese
- Tomato
- Primavera
- Cheese
- Pesto
- Cream
- Alfredo
- Marinara
- Carbonara
etc.

There are tons of pasta sauces available!

My 6 favourite dishes include...
- Spaghetti bolognese
- Beef lasagna
- Spaghetti with clams and garlic
- Pesto pasta with chicken
- Macaroni and cheese
- Penne and broccoli

Planning

After watching the demonstrations of making tomato and white sauce. I decided to go with the tomato sauce mainly because I like tomato sauce better. Out of the three pasta choices: penne, macaroni and fusilli, I will be using penne and will add corn and mushroom to my dish.

Evaluation

Today in Food Technology, I made a tomato sauce with corn penne dish. I did not add mushrooms in the end because after some research, I found out that people usually do not add mushrooms with tomato sauce but add it with cream sauce instead.

This involved using different skills; cooking pasta; knowing when your pasta is done; cutting skills when you cut your ingredients; making a sauce (when to put in ingredients, knowing when it is done etc.).

I think that I worked in a safe and hygienic manner because I washed my hands before making my food. I wore an apron, tied up my hair, removed my watch to prevent dirt and germs getting into my food. In addition, I used the correct chopping board when cutting up my vegetables and remembered to put a wet cloth underneath. However, I forgot to put the handle of my pan the right way when cooking and had to be reminded. 

I was organized today and definitely improved from last time because I worked in order of the recipe without making any mistakes. I had better time management skills as I finished early and had time to sit down and do a bit of reflection. Although no mistakes were made, the teacher said that I should have added more salt to the pasta itself when it was cooking so that it would be more flavourful. 

The appearance of my dish was vibrant because there was a nice shade of the same colours- red, yellow and orange. The taste of my dish was okay but it definitely needed more salt as there wasn't much flavour but there was a nice taste of pepper in it. My pasta itself was cooked nicely as it wasn't undercooked or overcooked because the texture of it was soft enough but was too soft. The aroma was that it smelt nicely of tomato sauce but except for that, there wasn't any special smell that stood out the most.

Nutrition Program

In this lesson, we used this website called Nutrition Program where we entered in our ingredients for our vegetable soup and it gave us information about the nutrition, costs etc.

This is the cost of my soup

0.82 pounds is only roughly 8 HKD which is very cheap for pasta

'

My pasta was pretty healthy but there was too much salt in it so I got an amber traffic light. Everything else was a green traffic light meaning that it is a healthy choice and this pasta can be eaten for a few times each week.